Darkness Falls

Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn't happy when an oil company executive comes calling. A number of important Saudi wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world's foremost expert in resolving just these kinds of complications. As far as he's concerned, though, he's left that world behind. Not his problem. Homeland Security sees things differently. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert, studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny talent for destroying drilling equipment. But worst of all is its ability to spread. It soon becomes clear that if this contagion isn't stopped, it will infiltrate the world's petroleum reserves, cutting the industrial world off from the energy that provides the heat, food, and transportation necessary for survival. Erin realizes that there's something eerily familiar about this bacteria. And that it couldn't possibly have evolved on its own.

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An interesting scenario, but a poor and overly predictable plot overall. Could have been brilliant, but ended up a dud. I get the impression that the author was simply trying to fill the last 150 pages after running out of original ideas about half-way through. The worst of Mills' books by far.

The writing in this one was pedestrian and the characters were like something from a comic book. I almost expected them to be wearing capes or curling their Snidely Whiplash mustaches at times. I came close to giving up on this one several times, but saw it through to the end. It was an interesting scenario.